10 Best WordPress Menu Plugins for 2019

Road signs let us know where we are and point us to where we want to go. Similarly, website menus help users to navigate your website. Menus tell users their current location on the website and point them to the information they’re looking for.

A good menu organizes, arranges, and displays content to users in a way that is easy to follow. Menus can be simple or complex depending on the purpose of your website. A well-thought-out menu significantly enhances the experience of visitors to your website.

There are many different kinds of menu plugins available for your WordPress website. What type of menu plugin you choose depends on what purpose your website will serve. In this post, I'll show you some of the best WordPress menu plugins for 2019.

A Brief Look at Website Menus

A website menu is made up of a collection of links. These links are road signs that make it possible to navigate and interact with a website. They guide you from one page to another, and they lead you to the information contained within the website.

An organized and easy-to-follow menu arranges and displays content in a way that is easy to follow. It leaves a positive impression on those visiting your website. It makes them want to spend more time in order to find out more about your business, what you offer, and even to buy products you’re selling or sign up for services you provide.

Menu Structure

A menu is divided into navigation bars. Each bar represents a particular category.

How you name these categories is very important. Navigation bars with concise, clear, descriptive categories allow users to quickly and easily get information about your business, services, products, etc.

Menu placement on your website should be consistent—in the same position on all pages. This makes it easy for users to pay attention and visually process the information you provide.

Finally, a menu should be uncluttered.

A Menu Should Be Responsive

Websites are not static entities. As your business grows, your website grows, your audience grows, and so does your reach. It goes without saying your website should be responsive and available on all devices. Each device has particular technical requirements. A menu that works on desktops may not work on mobiles. The menu should work well on all devices. Responsive website design makes this possible.

Technology is constantly evolving to create better experiences for its users. Navigation menus too have come a long way. They have evolved with time and adapted to changes in technology.

Types of Website Menus

Here are just some of the many types of website menus:

mega menus

hamburger menus

sticky menus

dropdown menus

sidebar menus

vertical menus

horizontal menus

one-page menus

sub-menus

icon menus

fixed menus

Each of these has specific situations where it is useful.

What Kind of Menu Should You Use?

Good navigation is critical to the success of your business. The question of what menu is suitable for your needs comes down to the simplicity or complexity of your website.

You will need to decide what specific purpose your website will serve and how you want to organize content on your website in order to reach users and the kind of audience you want to reach.

For example, if you’re running an online business that sells thousands of products that are organized into hundreds of categories and sub-categories, your menu will be complex. In this case, a mega menu might be more suited to your needs.

If you’re running a subscription-based website with multiple levels of membership, where access to content depends on what level of membership users pay for, then your choice of menu will have to be able to adapt to the different membership levels of each user.

But no matter how simple or complex your website is, ultimately your goal should be to make navigation super easy for your visitors so they can find information they need without jumping hoops. Otherwise, you lose them and they’re never coming back.

You Need a Proper Menu

But building a website navigation menu is an undertaking that requires a lot of thought, time, and planning. Even if you have no coding skills, you don’t have to lose sleep. The same applies if you know how to code but don't have time to create your own menu from scratch.

You don’t have to build a website menu from scratch! CodeCanyon has many WordPress menu plugins to help you out.

What Is a WordPress Menu Plugin?

A WordPress menu plugin allows you to create menus—whether simple or complex—for your website quickly and easily, without any specialized coding knowledge.

Choosing a Menu Plugin

Let’s take a look at things you should consider while choosing a menu plugin. These should be non-negotiable:

Ease of use: Easy for you to set up and use. Also easy for your members to use.

Easy Customization: No coding knowledge should be required to change layout, change colors, add images, upload a logo, etc. You should be able to do everything from your dashboard, without coding knowledge.

Responsiveness: Keep in mind, 70% of traffic now comes from mobile phones and tablets. The ability to scale to all devices—desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones—is a no-brainer.

Cross-Browser Compatibility: Not all visitors to your website use Google Chrome or Firefox.

Security: How are system vulnerabilities that occur when using the plugin addressed? Are there regular updates?

Best WordPress Menu Plugins of 2019

On CodeCanyon, there are many great options for menu plugins for WordPress websites.

UberMenu is the most popular mega menu plugin on Code Canyon. Here’s why:

You can rapidly develop mega menus from your pages, posts, custom links, or any content!

It’s highly customizable. You can tweak menu colors, sizes, and fonts with the Customizer’s Live Preview.

You can customize individual menu items’ styles right from the Menu Item Settings.

You can choose from multiple layouts, configure click and hover behaviour, and show or hide content for different screen sizes.

Finally, UberMenu is fully responsive and provides its own mobile menu. And if you’d like to separate your mobile menu from UberMenu, they offer a free solution which complements your UberMenu installation.

Customizing your mobile menu is faster and easier than ever, thanks to TapTap!

TapTap is a versatile, easy-to-customize, mobile-first menu plugin for WordPress that you can literally use on any WordPress site. It blends seamlessly into any WordPress website, but also allows you to quickly create menus that are uniquely yours. You can preview any changes you make in real time.

TapTap uses the built-in WordPress customization tools and menu builder. This means the plugin is lightweight and allows you to use tools you’re already familiar with. No need to learn a new interface!

Also, TapTap is WordPress Multisite compatible.

Flawless navigation is an absolute necessity, and TapTap is the best tool for the job.

If you want to offer your mobile website visitors a flawless experience that’s tailored specifically for the small screen then Touchy WordPress Mobile Menu is your plugin of choice. Everything in Touchy is designed and built with smartphone usability in mind.

Touchy is tremendously customizable. With just a few clicks, you can change the color of any element, alter positioning options, hide any of the menu bar buttons, override button functions, change transparencies, etc., all through the ridiculously easy-to-use real-time Customizer integration.

Here are additional features that make Touchy serve as a complete mobile navigation and header solution on any WordPress theme:

a logo location

call and e-mail buttons

an integrated search function

a back button and a multi-level drop-down menu

Finally, Touchy also works great on desktop browsers, so if you wish, you can even use it on a full-blown desktop site.

The best plugins enhance the usability of your WordPress website on a webpage level. WP Floating Menu Pro does just that. It is a two-in-one menu for WordPress, comprising a page navigator and sticky navigation menu.

With this plugin, you can add a smart looking page scrolling navigation bar to any WordPress theme or website in just minutes. All you need to do is define the sections on your website and create the one-page navigation menu.

Even more interesting, you can configure the navigation menu on the page level.

Whether you are a long-time WordPress guru or a complete newbie, Hero Menu allows you to easily and intuitively create a slick and professional WordPress menu.

It has great UX and UI. It’s easy to use. In a few easy steps, you will have any desired menu up and running within minutes—whether it's a complex mega menu rich with features or a simple drop-down menu.

Groovy is a fully responsive mega menu plugin built exclusively for WordPress.

It’s very easy to use. It has an online library with plenty of presets to help you set and create different types of menu on your site. Customization is easy as you can add colors and fonts, change sizes, add effects, and use presets.

I tried many different menu addons, but this is the first that worked straight away with no technical problems.

Conclusion

Website menus are road signs that take us from one place to another on a website. They can be simple or complex. A lot of thought goes into building a menu for a website. The good news is you don’t have to build one from scratch. There are many menu plugins available on CodeCanyon.

To learn more about menus in WordPress, check out some of our other posts here on Envato Tuts+.